Relationships Survey - #2

The other day I told you about the number one response to my survey about relationships. Today I want to talk about the second most asked question that came up. Really it was two questions that I have combined into one. Those two questions were basically the flip sides of the same thing: What makes a relationship succeed or what makes it fail.


In the special Teleclass coming up in about a week I will be talking specifically about those things that are key to success in a relationship. For now, I would like to talk about the one thing that results in failure.

The number one question that came up was why people tend to change so much for the worse from the time we meet them and start dating until the relationship is well into the committed phase. I stated that there is a part of the brain called the limbic system that eventually hijacks the relationship. Well, this is the key to understanding why relationships fail. You see the limbic system is our emotional warehouse where we store our pain and our defenses against our pain.

All of us carry woundedness from our childhoods. That is the pain I am talking about. Later in life our relationships and marriages become the theater for that pain since the limbic system really does not know the difference between our current relationship and our family of origin. We come to the partnership with our pain and we expect our partner to heal it for us. But there is a SECRET. We want our pain to go away without ever knowing what it is! So what we do is act out our pain in the form of a defense.

Meanwhile, our mate is doing their version of the same thing. To us, their acting out and defensiveness looks like and attack. Simultaneously, our acting out of our pain looks like an attack to them. This complimentary behavior forms a cycle of acting out, defensiveness, and lack of fulfillment that results in the inevitable breakup.

It boils down to this. People with no personal insight are unconscious to the emotional forces inside of themselves. What doesn’t get worked out gets acted out! Relationship failure is the result. Until we confront the emotional forces in our own lives, we will never fully understand what goes on in another person.

So you see failure in a relationship is not about sex, money, communications or any number of surface factors. These are symptoms of the underlying problem that we brought with us into the relationship.

What makes a relationship succeed? Please join us for the Teleclass: How you can move from Frustration to Fulfillment. Learn the top three qualities of a successful relationship. If you can’t make the class you will be sent a link to download the recording.

Relationships Survey #1 Answer

Recently I conducted a survey that asked one question: What is your greatest question regarding relationships? The response was immediate and somewhat overwhelming. I have done a number of surveys in the past, but never had the volume or the quality of response I go this time.

I got so many thoughtful responses that it was hard to categorize them. Over the next few weeks, I am anxious to visit all of the topics that came up. For instance, one of the less frequent questions was how do we know when to leave or end a relationship. Only 2 people asked that question, but it is so important that I will make a point to cover it either in my blog or in an upcoming call. So be watching for that.

Several responses were what I call “blame the mucus” questions. This is when we blame the other person and refuse to acknowledge the “swelling” of our own egos. I am even going to answer those.

So, what was the number one question about relationships? “Why do people change after they get into a relationship?” “What is it that happens to this wonderful person that I met and fell in love with who over time is transformed into seemingly another person who is far less desirable?” “Why does that initial love sometimes turn into disgust or hate?” One person even asked why people lie so much and hide the truth about themselves only to be found out later on in the relationship?

My answer may surprise you because it is so counter intuitive. But after years of marriage and relationship counseling, I can tell you that the two people who met and fell in love were actually the “real” people. There was no lying or pretense. The hideous truth is that after the relationship reaches a certain level of closeness that there is a primitive part of the brain that literally hijacks the relationship. This primitive part of the brain is called the limbic system. It is basically a hurt, angry, fearful, five-year-old that has an agenda of its own. It is all about fight or flight, anger/fear, survival and emotions. Until we confront this primitive part of our neurology, we are destined to have our relationships and our lives constantly disrupted.

So it is not that we are liars or that we misrepresent ourselves when we first fall for another. The problem is that there is something much more sinister and pervasive lurking inside of us that distorts our reality and takes over our situation.

Can we predict when this will happening in a relationship? Yes, it happens when the relationship moves from being casual to committed. In other words, when we get married or when we move in together, when the emotional distance closes and we find ourselves in “the relationship.” This often is right after the wedding. Sometimes the process is gradual, sometimes sudden. Sometimes these changes are triggered by the loss of a job or the death of a parent, when we can no longer hold back the emotional forces deep within our psyche.

The only way out of this condition is insight and personal growth. However, many people think the way out is to get out of the relationship only to find, ironically, that the next one has the same pattern – over and over.

Look for my blog post in a few days where I will be revealing the number two most frequently ask equation in the survey. Also, I will be conducting a Teleclass on Saturday, February 12th called “From Frustration to Fulfillment. The 3 Greatest Qualities of Successful Relationships.”

Click here to learn more about that class.